Did Montrealers Just Take a Walk on Sunday, or Were the Last Polls Faulty?

The Montreal municipal elections are over, with a majority of voters turning their backs on incumbent mayor Gérald Tremblay. He’ll still be mayor though because of the way the vote split between three main candidates. He received 37 per cent of the votes against 32.3 per cent for challenger Louise Harel and 25 per cent for Richard Bergeron.

The latter’s showing amounted to a moral victory since in August, he was polling less than 10 per cent. Harel’s score was a disappointment to her partisans, given that polls made last week showed Harel ahead in a much closer, three-way race.

What happened will be scrutinized by political junkies for months. One thing is clear: either the electorate was extremely volatile in the last few days, or the polls were faulty.

Angus Reid, one of Canada’s biggest polling firms, had been tracking the race for a couple of months and announced on Friday that Harel should receive 34 per cent to 30 per cent for Tremblay and 32 per cent for Bergeron. The poll was done by internet among members of Angus Reid’s carefully selected panel of respondents. The firm argues that internet polls are probably more accurate and certainly easier to do than conventional telephone polling, since increasingly people with land line telephones won’t respond to polling firms while pollsters can’t access cell phone users.

In a marketing document prepared last December, Angus Reid boasts that its internet polls were more accurate than those of other polling firms during recent elections—even calling the 2008 provincial election within less than a percentage point. But if you look at its stats, it seems that smaller, left-leaning parties always poll better than they do on election day. That may be because Angus Reid’s universe of possible respondents may over represent them.

Cold feet on election day may also be a factor: how many people switched from Bergeron to Tremblay at the last minute because they were overcome with doubts about whatever when they entered the polling place?

And it was a gorgeous day: maybe people who were having trouble making up their minds just took a walk: turn out was less than 40 percent of registered voters.